Only ICC clearance can save pair’s bid

If Mr Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr William Ruto run for the highest office in the land, they will find it increasingly difficult to pass the integrity test.

They will find it even harder to concentrate on delivering their campaign messages with huge clouds of the post-election ghosts hanging over their heads.

Listen to these very carefully weighed and advisedly used words of Mr Mutula Kilonzo, the Minister for Justice: “When you hold a State office you must be a person who brings honour to the nation and dignity to the office, as well as providing public confidence in the integrity of the office.”

If this is demanded of a person who seeks to be a people’s representative as Senator or Member of Parliament or of a Cabinet Secretary, then it must be doubly so for the person who wants to be Head of State and, therefore, Commander-in-Chief of Kenya’s Defence Forces.

If Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are cleared of the charges against them on appeal and then throw their hats into the ring, that will be a different set of circumstances.

It could propel them to pole position in the presidential race. If that does not happen, their bids are as good as dead in the water.

VP’s designs

Enter Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka. When Mr Kilonzo went public, arguing that if ICC confirmed the cases against Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta, they would not be eligible for a presidential run, he was viewed, wrongly I think, as giving voice to the VP’s designs.

That Mr Musyoka is the supreme political opportunist is not in question. It makes political sense for him to be seen to be close to Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta in their hour of need now as he was during his failed shuttle diplomacy of last year, which sought to shut out international justice.

If the two men are out of the presidential race, he would stand to gain if they endorsed his candidature and, better still, rallied their supporters behind him.

Mr Musyoka, Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta are imbued with a consuming desire to shut Prime Minister Raila Odinga out of State House.

Mr Odinga singlehandedly put paid to Mr Kenyatta’s 2002 presidential run when he quit Kanu and led a mass walk-out that paralysed the hitherto vaunted electoral machine.

Mr Ruto campaigned tooth and nail for Mr Odinga in 2007. But they fell out horribly as ICC kicked in to demand justice for the victims and survivors of the post-election violence.

The relationship between Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka is rather like that between a snake and a mongoose. They want to kill each other.

Mr Odinga’s corner believes that had Mr Musyoka stuck with ODM, the party’s win in 2007 would have been decisive. They believe worse about the man’s activities in 2007 than they let on.

Mr Musyoka loathes what he believes to be Mr Odinga’s refusal to recognise him as a pillar and player of the coalition government.

He believes Mr Odinga’s corner ridicules his role in government and will look for every chance to humiliate him.

It will be much easier for Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta to throw in their lot with Mr Musyoka than it can ever be for both or either man to bite the bullet and back Mr Odinga. Mr Musyoka and Mr Odinga cannot share an election platform.